The Lager That Went Out to Sea

On August 15, 1903 the Germania-Brauerei Tsingtao was registered inside the Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory, a stretch of 552 square kilometres that Germany held from 1898 to 1914 and whose administrative centre was the Chinese town of Qingdao. It was an Anglo-German joint stock company based in Hong Kong, and the two accounts give its paid-in capital differently: as 400,000 Mexican silver dollars divided into 4,000 shares priced at 100 dollars each, and as 400,000 German marks. The first supervisory board included four houses of Shanghai and J. Jürgen Block of H. Sietas & Co. of Qufu. Two brewmasters are on the record, R. Schuster from 1904 to 1905 and Martin Wehle from 1906 to 1914. The first beer was served on December 22, 1904.

The flagship is a well-hopped standard pale lager of 4.7 percent alcohol, brewed with malt, rice, hops and the water of Laoshan, the Taoist mountain 40 kilometres east of the city, using yeast from Germany. For decades the beer was advertised as brewed with mineral water from the Laoshan Spring; that now applies only to beer made in Qingdao, but the sentence is still what carries the taste abroad. When the Korean War and the embargo that followed forced the brewery onto domestic material, the government urged farmers in Shandong to grow the hops and barley themselves and gave out free seed. A darker Tsingtao Dark Beer of 5.2 percent and a green spirulina pilsner of 4.5 percent come from the same cellars, and on its centenary a museum of the German buildings and the earliest equipment opened in the city.

Permission for a Qingdao International Beer Festival was first sought in 1991 and the city became its main sponsor; the first festival opened on June 23, 1991 and has been held annually ever since. It was named for an international audience although its main purpose was to make the brand better known at home. It now usually lasts fourteen days in late August, with shows in the city and many varieties of international beer drunk instead of only Tsingtao. Inside the villa district there is a second, smaller week: the Badaguan Beer Festival, held from August 10 to 25, with instrument and dance performances and a beer-drinking competition. What began as advertising for one brand is now also treated as part of the city's beer culture.